


First Bite

by mysteriousaliwz (MysteriousAliWays)



Series: Sanctuary [4]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Alternate Universe, Explicit Language, Humour, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-27
Updated: 2010-05-27
Packaged: 2017-10-09 18:17:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/90188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MysteriousAliWays/pseuds/mysteriousaliwz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>More in the Primeval Sanctuary!verse - previous fics in this series can be found <a href="http://mysteriousaliwz.livejournal.com/95107.html">here</a>. Possibly slightly less heavy on the crack (sorry!) but more of the smut (huzzah!). I say smut, but I don't think they actually take off their trousers at any point. Still ...</p>
    </blockquote>





	First Bite

**Author's Note:**

> More in the Primeval Sanctuary!verse - previous fics in this series can be found [here](http://mysteriousaliwz.livejournal.com/95107.html). Possibly slightly less heavy on the crack (sorry!) but more of the smut (huzzah!). I say smut, but I don't think they actually take off their trousers at any point. Still ...

  
  
  
  
  


**Entry tags:**

| 

  
[author: mysteriousaliwz](http://mysteriousaliwz.livejournal.com/tag/author:%20mysteriousaliwz), [primeval](http://mysteriousaliwz.livejournal.com/tag/primeval), [ryan](http://mysteriousaliwz.livejournal.com/tag/ryan), [ryan/stephen](http://mysteriousaliwz.livejournal.com/tag/ryan/stephen), [sanctuary!verse](http://mysteriousaliwz.livejournal.com/tag/sanctuary%21verse), [slash](http://mysteriousaliwz.livejournal.com/tag/slash), [stephen](http://mysteriousaliwz.livejournal.com/tag/stephen)  
  
  
---|---  
  
  
Title : **First Bite**  
Fandom: Primeval  
Series: Sanctuary  
Author : [](http://mysteriousaliwz.livejournal.com/profile)[**mysteriousaliwz**](http://mysteriousaliwz.livejournal.com/)  
Rating : PG16+  
Pairing : Ryan/Stephen  
Disclaimer: Primeval, Ryan and Stephen are (unfortunately) not mine. I'm just borrowing them. Sanctuary, on the other hand, **is** a product of my fevered imagination.  
Warnings: Swearing. (I never swear in real life, but my fics seem to be full of it.) Blood.  
Author Notes : More in the Primeval Sanctuary!verse - previous fics in this series can be found [here](http://mysteriousaliwz.livejournal.com/95107.html). Possibly slightly less heavy on the crack (sorry!) but more of the smut (huzzah!). I say smut, but I don't think they actually take off their trousers at any point. Still ...  
Thanks to [](http://fredbassett.livejournal.com/profile)[**fredbassett**](http://fredbassett.livejournal.com/) for the beta and the encouragement. It's all her fault.

_   
**First Bite**   
_

~~~~~~~

The mound beneath the duvet groaned and looked for a moment as if it was about to emerge from below the covers. A small gap appeared at the edge, but quickly closed again.

A plaintive, if muffled, voice said "Stephen?"

"Mmrph?" said the second mound, its voice thick with sleep.

"Could you close the curtains all the way? It's far too bright in here."

"What's up, you hungover or something? I didn't think you'd drunk all that much last night."

"I didn't - only had a couple of beers. I feel really grotty though. Mouth feels like something crawled in there and died. And my head feels weird."

Grumbling, Stephen crawled out of bed and padded over to the window to twitch at the curtains, closing the gap between them and deepening the gloom in the bedroom.

"Well, since I'm up I might as well make breakfast. It's my turn anyway. What are you having? Bacon and eggs?"

Ryan made a nauseous sound that conveyed the message that, no, bacon and eggs really wouldn't be all that welcome at this juncture.

"Not hungry? That's not like you - you usually have a cast-iron stomach."

"Nah, I'm starving - I just can't face a fry-up for some reason."

"What do you want then?"

Ryan pondered for a moment, then answered hesitantly "Do we have any tomato juice?"

Stephen raised a quizzical eyebrow, but headed towards the kitchen. "I'll have a look."

Ryan dragged himself from between the sheets and plodded towards the bathroom.  
   
Stephen was rummaging in the back of the fridge when the incredulous exclamation "What the fuck ...?" came from the bathroom, startling him into banging his head on the underside of the fridge shelf. A jar of mayonnaise toppled onto the floor and rolled under the kitchen table.  
   
"Ryan?"  
   
No answer. Stephen went to investigate.  
   
The first thing he noticed on entering the bathroom was the white-knuckled grip Ryan had on the edge of the sink with his left hand. The second thing Stephen noticed was his own reflection in the mirror - his own reflection, but not Ryan's. Because Ryan's reflection wasn't there. As far as the mirror was concerned, the only current occupant of the bathroom was Stephen, and it was resolutely ignoring the Special Forces captain standing in front of it.  
   
Ryan turned around slowly, toothbrush handle still protruding from the corner of his mouth, fingertips at his lips ... prodding cautiously, disbelievingly, at one of the sharp fangs where his canine teeth used to be.  
   
"Ngk!" squeaked Stephen.  
   
They stared at one another in stunned silence. Finally Stephen spoke.  
   
"Vampire?"  
   
Ryan nodded. He slid the mangled toothbrush out of his mouth and twisted to spit a mouthful of toothpaste and bristles into the sink.  
   
"Bloody hell," breathed Stephen. "I suppose this must be another one of The Management's ideas."  
   
"Must be," replied Ryan, whose expression was still what can only be described as dumbfounded.  
   
Stephen suddenly looked worried. "Are mine ...?" he asked, hurriedly poking at his own teeth, then looking relieved at the discovery that they were still definitely human.  
   
"Nah, you're still normal," said Ryan, distractedly testing the sharpness of his right fang. "Ow! Bugger, those are sharp." A bead of blood welled up on the pad of his finger, and as he sucked at it, darkness flickered briefly and disconcertingly in his eyes.  
   
"Well, one thing's for sure, I'm not going to be asking you for a blow job any time soon," quipped Stephen, an edge of unease in his voice.  
   
"Wimp," retorted Ryan, but Stephen could tell his heart wasn't in it.  
   
Ryan's stomach rumbled. They both looked down at it for a moment. Ryan raised his eyes and gazed speculatively at Stephen's throat.  
   
"I'm still starving, by the way."  
   
"I'll get that tomato juice," Stephen replied hastily, scurrying kitchenwards.  
   
"Oh, and Stephen ..." called Ryan after him.  
   
"What?"  
   
"You might want to put on a polo neck today."  
   
"Uh ... okay."  
   
Stephen mentally reviewed the contents of his wardrobe and inwardly cursed as he realised that his taste in clothes had hitherto run to open-necked shirts and crew-necked t-shirts. This was not good.  
   


~~~~~~~~~~

  
   
The morning dragged on interminably. Ryan had forced down the tomato juice with a grimace, but it hadn't helped. He'd tried a few morsels of toast, but they'd made him gag. They'd even unearthed some black pudding from the depths of the fridge, and Ryan had sucked on lumps of that for a while, but any attempt at swallowing had made him retch.  
   
Finally they gave up on the food. Ryan writhed on the bed, clutching at his stomach. Stephen hovered anxiously in the doorway.  
   
"Would some paracetamol help?"  
   
"I. Don't. Think. So," growled Ryan. He curled tighter into a foetal position, fingers clutching at the bedcovers. He was moaning now. Ryan's moans were usually a pleasure to hear, but this was a low, rumbling, menacing sound that was making Stephen increasingly nervous.   
   
Suddenly Ryan raised his head and looked straight at Stephen. His irises were no longer visible, obliterated by pools of inky blackness. He pushed himself up onto his knees on the bed.  
   
"Hungerr!" he snarled.  
   
Stephen decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and legged it. He pelted along the corridor, frantically sizing up his escape options. Vampires and daylight didn't mix, so if he could just make it out to the gardens ... He raced around the corner - and almost cannoned into Ryan, who was leaning nonchalantly against the wall.  
   
"Were you aware that vampires can move incredibly fast when they want to?" enquired Ryan, conversationally. "Wish I'd had this ability before, it would have come in very useful on operations."   
   
Stephen turned to run, but Ryan had already blocked his way. Before he could detect what Ryan was about to do, Stephen found himself pinned against the wall, scrabbling to escape, but despite all his efforts Ryan was able to keep him trapped with just a hand on his chest. Stephen's heart was thumping so hard he was sure Ryan could feel it through his ribcage. A long, sharp, talon-like fingernail traced a path along Stephen's jawline and pressed into the pulse at his neck. Stephen tried vainly to dig himself into the wall at his back. The talon continued downwards and sliced cleanly through the fabric of his shirt, scoring over a nipple and briefly catching on the gold bar of his piercing, causing a pained intake of breath. Ryan leaned closer, his breathing ghosting over Stephen's cheek.  
   
"So strong," hissed the vampire. "Such vigour."

Stephen could feel wetness on his skin as Ryan slowly licked over the pulse point on his throat. Terror seized him; he could face dangerous prehistoric predators, no problem, but this was freaking him out. This unnatural transformation of someone he'd come to consider a friend into an undead creature, this scared him more than any encounter with any other predator, past or future.  
   
"Oh god, please no, please Ryan, don't ..." he whispered, closing his eyes.  
   
"I can smell your fear," purred Ryan.  
   
Stephen felt a nuzzle at his neck, and waited in trepidation for the bite ... but it didn't come. Ryan seemed to falter; Stephen opened his eyes to see his friend stagger backwards, a look of distress on his face, and slide down the wall, coming to rest on the floor.  
   
"I can't do this to you, not when it's ... frightening you like this. I won't. I won't do it, " Ryan announced, his voice shaky but determined. A spasm shook him, and he let out a gasp of pain.  
   
'This has gone quite far enough,' thought Stephen.  
   
"Management!" he yelled.  
   
The Duty Manager, who had been chewing fretfully on her black-varnished fingernails, jumped, startled. This was all going horribly pear-shaped - all she'd wanted had been a dark and sensual vampire scene, with a sexily gothic and menacing Ryan molesting a helpless Stephen. After all, she'd read several vampire fics, and they were pretty hot. However these two were being distinctly uncooperative, and it wasn't going at all the way she'd envisaged.  
   
"Management, what the hell do you think you're up to?"  
   
The Duty Manager summoned up her courage to reply. Stephen was looking distinctly pissed off.  
   
_"Um ... hello Stephen?"_

  "We've done some pretty weird things for you lot these past few months, but what on earth you're playing at with this one is beyond me. Look at him! This is the guy that took a bite from an allosaur and said that it 'smarted a bit', so for him to be like this," Stephen gestured at the soldier huddled against the skirting board, "he must be in bloody agony!"  
   
"It was hardly a deep bite - more of a scratch from its teeth," came a faint murmur from the vicinity of the floor.  
   
"Whatever. Anyway, I don't know why you're putting him through this, but I want it to stop right now."  
   
_"It wasn't supposed to turn out this way!"_ quavered the unfortunate Duty Manager. _"It's only hurting him because he's fighting it, and he's gone hours without feeding. If he'd ... if you'd both just gone with the flow and done the vampire/victim thing, you'd have been finished with it by now and no-one would have been hurt. Apart from a very slight bite mark, of course."_  
   
Stephen glowered.  
   
"Maybe, but it's got to stop. Change him back. Now."  
   
_"I ... can't."_  
   
"What do you mean, you can't? You made him like this, didn't you? So turn him back!"  
   
_"It's the narrative imperative, d'you see? Once the storyline is established and he's been a vampire for several hours, we can't just suddenly change him back in mid-story! You can't do that sort of thing, not unless you're dabbling in magical realism, and that's a hell of a tricky thing to pull off. You pretty much have to be a South American author for a start, and even then you're treading on fairly dodgy ground. I'll be honest with you, I wouldn't even attempt it."_  
   
"And you're not South American?"  
   
_"No, I'm from Aberdeenshire. Sorry."_  
   
Stephen bit his lip, a frown furrowing the space between his eyebrows.  
   
"So what do we do?" he asked.  
   
_"Well, the story has to come to some sort of dramatically-satisfying conclusion. So ... let me think, what are the options here ...we have the Erotic option where Vampire Ryan, um, molests you and feeds on your blood; the Overcoming The Monster option where you stick a stake through him and kill him; or the Tragic self-sacrificing version where Ryan lets himself die rather than ... attack ... you."_  
   
The Duty Manager's voice trailed off into silence. She could tell from Stephen's expression that those options did not meet with his approval. Bugger, if the rest of The Management found out she'd broken Ryan quite that badly, she'd get thrown off the rota.  
   
_"Of course, the death bit would be only temporary,"_ she hastened to add. _"He'll be back to normal tomorrow, whichever option we go for, but it might be a trifle, ah, uncomfortable for him in the meantime."_     
   
 Stephen heaved an exasperated sigh.  
   
_"Look, can I suggest you give the vampire thing a try? It shouldn't hurt all that much, and it really will be worth your while - trust me on this one."_ The Duty Manager was using her best persuasive voice. _"And it's got to be better than the alternatives, surely?"_  
   
"I suppose so. He's already died once, I'm not going to let him go through that again. It looks like it will have to be the letting-him-bite-me option. Although I want it known that I'm doing this under protest."  
   
_"Yes, yes, thank you for being so helpful. Of course, normally, if you don't like the look of any scenario, you just have to say and we cancel it straight away - it's just the fact that the story is already well underway by now, so we have to, kind of, stick with it. Narrative imperative and all that,"_ she babbled.  
   
"Yes, you said," repled Stephen drily. "Bedroom? I'm assuming there's one in the vicinity. I don't want to have to carry him too far - he's not exactly a lightweight with all that muscle."  
   
 _"The nearest one's number 27 - two doors along."_  
   
Stephen bent down, murmuring "Come on then sunshine, let's get you sorted," hooked his arms under Ryan's armpits and around his chest, and dragged the semi-conscious soldier along the corridor to the room in question. He shoved the door open with his hip but halted at the sight of the room before him. The decor was distinctly gothic - crimson hangings draped the four-poster bed, matching the velvet bedcovers; a preponderance of dark mahogany panelling and furniture set a mood of prevailing gloom. Although it was barely afternoon, moonlight gleamed through the open window, where a breeze fluttered the diaphanous, white, muslin curtains and set the candles guttering in their iron candelabra encrusted with dribbles of wax.  
   
Stephen did that enquiring thing with his eyebrows again, and the Duty Manager felt herself blushing.  
   
_"It just seemed kind of ... appropriate,"_ she said, lamely. She reached over to the panel of switches marked 'Mood Lighting &amp; Sound Effects' and flicked off the switch marked 'Thunderstorm', just as raindrops started to patter against the half-open window. Pity - Maintenance had come up with a really good lightning effect, but she didn't think the guys were in a mood to appreciate it right now.  
   
 Stephen took a deep breath and hauled his companion onto the bed, undid the laces of his shoes and Ryan's army boots, removing them and letting them drop to the floor. He shrugged off the remnants of his ruined shirt, and lay down next to Ryan, giving him a gentle shove.  
   
"Ryan. Ryan, mate, you need to have some blood. It's ok to take some of mine - I don't mind."  
   
Ryan looked at him hazily, seemingly barely aware of what was being said. Stephen took hold of him and rolled them both over till he was flat on his back with Ryan on top of him.   
   
"You sure?" slurred the soldier.  
   
"Yes. Just do it."  
   
 The glimmer of blue-grey in Ryan's eyes was submerged completely in black as he bent his head and fastened his teeth into the junction of Stephen's shoulder and neck. Stephen flinched and tried to push the memory of that giant centipede from his mind, but didn't have to try for long. The pain of the bite was immediately followed by the sensation of dark tendrils of pleasure snaking along his veins, rippling through his body, gradually building in intensity until he felt swamped in a rush of ecstasy. In the back of his awareness he could hear high-pitched moans and gasps, and realised that they were coming from himself. Ryan sucked harder, dug his fangs in deeper. Stephen felt light-headed, drunk on pleasure, overwhelmed. Brightness blazed white behind his eyelids and he slipped into unconsciousness.  
   
 He came to leaning back against Ryan's chest, propped up between his legs, Ryan's arms wrapped around him, holding him up.  
   
"Stephen, you have to feed," urged Ryan. "I'd held back too long and I ended up taking too much. It's weakened you - you have to take some back. Go on."  
   
Ryan held his forearm in front of Stephen's face. Stephen gazed dizzily at the tracery of veins, he was unnaturally aware of the blood flowing through them, could almost see the energy pulsating under the smooth skin. All that energy right there in front of him for the taking, but he couldn't seem to move. At the corner of his vision a knife appeared; the point nicked the skin and a trickle of blood oozed out. The forearm came closer, touching his lips, smearing the blood over them, a sharp, metallic taste against his tongue. A sudden impulse seized him and he latched onto the flesh before him, sinking in his fangs. (Fangs? Since when did he have fangs?) The muscles twitched beneath his mouth as it filled with blood. He sucked greedily, feeling strength seep back into him with every swallow. Eventually (and a little reluctantly) he pulled off, and lapped at the trickle of blood that dribbled from the puncture wound. He could feel Ryan's thighs trembling slightly against the side of his ribs.  
   
"Management, you're forgiven. That was ... amazing," panted Ryan.  
   
They stayed like that for several minutes, letting the rush subside, then lay down together, shifting so that Stephen's head rested on Ryan's shoulder, and his arm draped over Ryan's waist. Ryan pressed a gentle kiss to the top of Stephen's head, and slowly threaded his fingers repeatedly through Stephen's hair.  
   
"If I've drunk your blood, and you've drunk my blood, does that make us sort of blood brothers?" Stephen asked thoughtfully.  
   
"Blood something," answered Ryan, amused. "Not brothers though - I certainly don't want to think of you as a brother. Incest is not one of my kinks."  
   
 Stephen laughed.  
   
"Thanks. For the blood. For not letting me die," said Ryan.  
   
"No problem. You did the same for me."  
   
Stephen felt another kiss at the top of his head.  
   
"Get some sleep," suggested Ryan. "It's been a hell of a day."  
   
Stephen snuggled closer, feeling Ryan's arm tighten around him. Gradually the two of them drifted into sleep.  
   


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   
The Duty Manager sat back in her seat and finally let herself relax, letting out a relieved sigh. That had been pretty hot - hot enough to balance out the unfortunate business earlier. Maybe she wouldn't be thrown off the rota in disgrace after all.  
That was it though - no more vampire fics. From now on it was going to be nothing kinky, nothing weird, absolute vanilla sex.  
   
Maybe with some chocolate sauce ...

~~~~~~~


End file.
